The present invention relates to electronic devices for elections. More specifically, this invention relates to an apparatus and method of controlling the local, State or National election process by the use of a personal electronic device as the voting ballot that can be forwarded to a voter""s home using regular mail.
The United States Presidential Election of 2000 made it clear that a new solution is desirable. The personnel, time and costs involved in the counting and manual recounting of votes are an issue to be resolved. Further, present voting systems do not maintain ballot secrecy when the vote is cast from home, office or public places (for example absentee balloting). Thus, it is desirable to have a method of elections that allows casting a vote from home, office, public places or precinct without losing either the secrecy or the security of the ballot. It is further desirable to provide a means for counting votes in less time and at lower cost than existing methods.
Since International Business Machines introduced the personal computer (PC) in 1981, its presence and availability among citizens has become widespread. In fact, Plunkett Research estimates that approximately 60% of U.S. homes contain a PC, and many homes contain more than one. In addition 42% of U.S. office workers have access to the Internet at work, and 63% of the U.S. workforce now use a computer on the job daily. For those homes not equipped with a PC, local libraries, schools and voting sites provide public access to PCs.
The wide availability of personal computers now permits the cost effective solution of the present invention to be practicable. As described below, the present invention takes advantage of the PC to provide human interface functions without the need for proprietary voting entry hardware.
Previously proposed voting systems have not enjoyed the cost advantage of utilizing existing personal computers already conveniently sited for the majority of the U.S. population. For example U.S. Pat. No. 5,666,765 to Sarner et al. discloses a proprietary computer based voting booth. U.S. Pat. No. 5,878,399 to Peralto discloses a computerized network of voting modules for voting precinct use. U.S. Pat. No. 5,610,383 to Chumbley discloses a proprietary ballot card reader. U.S. Pat. No. 5,278,753 to Graft discloses a precinct based voting system that stores voter selections onto optical media, which in turn is read at a central polling office. U.S. Pat. No. 5,583,329 to Davis et al. discloses a precinct based voting system that stores voter selections onto voting terminal memory, which in turn is transferred to supervisory memory apparatus. The supervisory memory apparatus is then transported to electoral headquarters for retrieval of precinct vote tallies.
Other proposed voting systems are not associated with physical electronic ballots that can be easily mailed to voters. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 6,092,051 to Kilian, et. al. discloses a secure receipt-free electronic voting that relies upon an electronic bulletin board. Similarly, U.S. Pat. No. 6,081,793 to Challener et. al discloses electronically transmitted voting with alternate non-electronic paper ballots.
It is an object of the present invention to allow casting a vote from home, office, public places and/or precinct without losing the secrecy of the vote.
It is an object of the present invention to show a method of controlling the local, State or National election process by the use of an electronic device or electronic ballot.
It is an object of the present invention to remove the vote of an invalid voter without compromising the secrecy of the election, in a manner that facilitates the challenge of ineligible votes and the correction of erroneous votes.
It is an object of the present invention to simplify the complexity of the election system hardware using personal computers and electronic ballot.
In one embodiment of the present invention an apparatus is described that allows casting of votes from home while maintaining voting confidentiality when voting is observed by third parties. The apparatus includes one or more computers, a plurality of personal voting code enabled electronic ballots (PVCe-ballot) and one or more computer connectivity interfaces. A verified voter enters voting codes. When a voting code matches a personal voting code that is present in the PVCe-ballot, an affirmative vote is registered.
In some embodiments of the present invention an electronic ballot is powered by using an electromagnetic field first pulse.
In yet another embodiment of the present invention a method of casting a vote in elections using a PVCe-ballot is disclosed. PVCe-ballots are prepared under the supervision of election officials, voter verification information that matches PVCe-ballot stored information is entered and affirmative voting selections are made by entering voting codes that match personal voting codes stored in the PVCe-ballot. The method may further provide a method to erase a ballot in the event tampering with the PVCe-ballot is detected.